Abstract

Objective: This study evaluated the incidence of benign and malignant lesions of the bladder in forensic autopsy cases for the first time in Turkey.

Materials and methods: The bladders of 125 (106 men, 19 women) forensic cases who died of trauma or gunshot were obtained at autopsy. For each bladder, 3 samples were taken from the anterior wall, trigon, and posterior wall. The tissues were embedded in Paraffin, cut into 5 µm sections, stained with hematoxylin and eosin and examined microscopically for the existence of benign and malignant epithelial lesions.

Results: The mean and median ages were 57 years and 58 years (range 25-86 years), respectively. None of the cases had any malignant changes, either macro- or microscopicaly. None of the bladders had epithelial dysplasia. Benign bladder lesions were detected in 36.8% of the women and 10.3% of the men. These  included mucosal metaplastic changes in 6 (5.5%) men and 4 (21%) women, and cystitis in 5 (4.1%) men and 3 (15.7%) women. Of the cystitis cases, 4 were chronic, 2 were follicular, 1 was polypoid, and 1 was hemorrhagic cystitis. 

Conclusion: As reported in other series, no bladder cancers were detected in this study. Moreover, none of the benign epithelial lesions detected in our autopsy series showed premalignant changes.